"Isn't it splendid news?" Joy questioned, eagerly. "Don't you think Miss Mary will make a capital clergyman's wife? Mother says she will. And it is not very far from here to Home Vale, so Miss Pring won't feel lonely, will she? One good thing has come from my illness, you see!"
"How do you make out that?"
"Well, Miss Mary came to help mother nurse me, and, of course, Mr. Cole couldn't help seeing how sweet, and gentle, and—"
"Oh, so you think you have been the means of making the match!" interposed Jasper, with a chuckle of great amusement.
Joy laughed; then stopped suddenly, a look of pain crossing her face.
"It's my hip," she explained; "it does worry me so. Mother says when we get home she will have further advice for me, I'm afraid that will be no good. Oh, Uncle Jasper, I can so well understand now poor Mrs. Long feels! I wish I could have seen her before we go, but, of course, that's out of the question."
"If you like to send her a message I'll give it to Long."
"Oh, will you? That is kind. Please him I sent his wife my love, and say I hope God will comfort her as He has comforted me."
"Oh, my dear child, it is hard for you!" he exclaimed.
"It isn't half so hard as it was, Uncle Jasper. At first I felt dreadful about it—it was wicked of me, I know. But not to be able to join Eric in any of his amusements! Never to be able to run about and enjoy any of the things I so love! And, worst of all, to have to give up my music! I don't suppose I shall ever play 'The Last Rose of Summer' to you again. Oh, it seemed so hard to be shut off from everything I cared about! But I didn't feel that long. I began to think of all the helpless people in the world worse off than I am—people who are blind, and deaf, and even dumb, and I remembered that if I couldn't help mother in the future as I had hoped, that God might have a plan for me that I didn't know anything about, so I determined to trust Him; to have patience, and wait."